Psybertron Asks

It’s fair to say that doing an MBA back in the late 1980’s was instrumental in developing my focus on the psychological aspects of the question, “What, why and how do we know?” I’ve referenced my dissertation once or twice before and acknowledged the input from the tutors in the “organizational behavioural” subjects.

Of course the MBA I did, like all MBA’s then and for some time since, probably deserved the backlash to the idea that by doing an MBA, an otherwise unseasoned individual had learned how to do business. The steady stream of (expensive) Harvard “Case Studies” – where having “done the numbers” students were expected to pronounce on the rights and wrongs of business decisions made, propose courses of action and (in some cases) compare predictions with real outcomes. Right ? Err, Mu. Causation is weirder than that.

Tom Peters was already become the guru of excellence or quality – sequels to Peters & Waterman “In Search of Excellence” were already required reading. Apart for dynamism and difference and a focus on people (staff and customers) Tom’s bombastic style continued to promote his own consulting guru business, but of course flatly refused to reduce advice to fixed repeatable prescriptions – or rather only ever prescriptions for “style” of doing business, never for predictable success for specific actions.

Interesting to see this recent Tom Peters conclusion from two health-care related pieces, one on “architecture” the other on the “shape” of winners.

(1) Process “beats” outcome in evaluating an “experience”–even one as apparently “outcome sensitive” as a hospital stay …
(2) Happy staff, happy customers. Want to “put the customer first”? Put the staff “more first”!
(3) Quality is free–and then some.

…
Who doesn’t work with his hands.
He looks at you once,
You know he understands.
[Peter Gabriel – Lamb Lies Down …]

Interesting to see “Shop Class as Soul Craft” by Matthew Crawford is making a buzz. The parallels to Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are noted in reviews, but not apparently in the book (?) which I’ll review myself once I’ve read it.

And of conscious perception generally. [via Sam]. Including reference to Daniel Wegner – I blogged about reading earlier.

Blubrry.

Hitchens and Dawkins that is, according to Terry Eagleton in this NYT review of his “Reason, Faith and Revolution” by Stanley Fish. Linked via a great piece from Ben Goertzl.

Don’t entirely agree with Ben. OK, so the philosophical / metaphysical questions like “why is there something rather than nothing” are not exactly “theological” questions – but they are questions whose answers … after any amount of conjecture … can only ever be taken on faith. A belief that can never be “reasoned” on the basis of known “science” even as the scientific boundaries are pushed back.

[Post Note – Fish’s God Talk Pt 2 here also in NYT. Thanks to Marde at Seev’s Place. – Ian McEwan quoted too – the narrative view – morality depends on believing – actually “having” – a story.]

Garbage via Rivets.

And more of the stuff, via StumbleUpon

Great George Monbiot piece in the Grauniad. Thay tyranny of numbers again.

These men would’ve stopped Darwin.  Science research in Britain is now all about turning knowledge into business, rather than the beauty of exploration.

Of course the problem is that neither side of that choice is the right one – knowledge purely for its own sake is as barren as knowledge for someone’s financial interest. The point is knowledge for value to humanity and the cosmos – wisdom – truth AND beauty. (Thanks to Nick Maxwell at FoW.)

… that isn’t bad going for keeping your trap shut and selling what ever integrity you ever had down the swanny …

A sense of proportion on the MP’s expenses “furore”.

I almost posted yesterday to react to the constant focus of “what” MP’s expenses cover rather the why and how expenses are paid, but this reaction from Ffoulkes puts the media in its place.

Interesting piece from Clay Shirky on interactive media as a kind of industrial revolution. Let them drink gin ? Let them watch TV ? Very much in the Douglas Adams / Church of the Interactive Network mode. (Interesting at least partly because I’m currently re-reading Bronowski’s “Man Without a Mask” study of William Blake.)

(Via Rivets)